Eskom Causing Drop in Business Confidence, No Money for Much Needed Repairs

• Eskom's ongoing issues have caused business confidence to drop dramatically as loadshedding negatively affects profits
• Loadshedding has been happening on and off for 13 years and no substantial improvements have been seen
• Eskom's many issues include power station repairs and maintenance, incompetence and high demand for electricity

Eskom's complex problems have caused South Africans to lose confidence in the business sector with ongoing loadshedding being one of the key factors. Loadshedding has caused nearly 60% of businesses to lose profits.

Bonang Mohale, the president of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), has remarked that it's been 13 years since loadshedding began in 2008 and yet no tangible improvement has been made.

"We know that each time we switch off the light, the loss per day used to be anything between a billion to 2 billion a day every day, now it’s going towards 3 billion a day. If you’re a small or medium enterprise, half your day is taken by Stage 4 loadshedding taking 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon," Mohale said.

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The state of Eskom

Power stations continue to break down, which puts strain on those which are still operational. Loadshedding is supposed to be a mechanism for mitigating this but due to insufficient funds, these problems persist, MyBroadband reports.

However, according to SABC News, some analysts report that a lack of competence at Eskom is a bigger issue than hardware problems. The reason for this is that management does not know how to resolve issues sustainably and efficiently, therefore the challenges keep mounting.

New power stations which were supposed to assist in carrying the load have a lower generation figure than the older ones and some have even exploded. These repairs will take years to complete and in the meantime, South Africans will be left in the dark.

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Ramaphosa worried about Eskom

Earlier, Briefly News reported on President Cyril Ramaphosa addressing concerns regarding Stage 4 loadshedding during an ANC press briefing in Soweto.

It seems it is not only regular South Africans who are worried about recent power outages and issues facing Eskom, but the president also struggles to sleep at night due to electricity concerns.

"If there is anything that keeps me awake at night, it is Eskom and electricity generation," said Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa believes a restructuring of Eskom is necessary to move forward. He also mentioned that instead of continuing to grant Eskom the monopoly on electricity generation, there should be competitors in the sector.

Source: Briefly News